Among the many firsts of this inaugural year of your new law school is initiating this column. We hope it will become an interesting regular feature of the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Bar Bulletin.
It is a privilege and pleasure to begin this series by acknowledging with heartfelt thanks the extraordinary support we have received from the bench and Bar of Jacksonville. Without any exaggeration, we already are an excellent law school because of you.
As we continue to select highly qualified candidates for a second promising class of aspiring lawyers, we welcome four additional new faculty who are outstanding teachers, scholars and accomplished practitioners.
We also are preparing for our American Bar Association accreditation review and arranging to move soon into our permanent Downtown location.
The far-off dreamscape I see daily from my desk prompts me to pause and reflect on the beautiful successes of our law school’s inaugural year and look ahead at what we can already glimpse from our uniquely elevated institutional vantage and redoubtable position of strength.
Students are our purpose, not our excuse, for having a law school. Our students, who many of you have met at JBA luncheons and other occasions, have demonstrated individually and collectively the wisdom of the university’s student-centric philosophy throughout the long days and impossibly short months since they began their legal studies last August.
Our students have completed their first-year courses and exams after learning the fundamentals of law and mastering the required subjects of legal education. They benefited from the hands-on, bespoke attention of the talented passionate teachers on our full-time law faculty to a degree we believe is unsurpassed anywhere.
They also have wrung the most out of priceless learning opportunities while wearing their green lanyards that expedite regular access to nearby court libraries and court facilities.
Our students were generously mentored by lawyers, including judges, encouraging them to watch, talk and learn about their work.
You also serve as role models to emulate. This aspect of our students’ learning experience is priceless. The value of your engagement in our students’ education is amplified because I believe that the practitioners in our city, the First Coast and Florida are in the vanguard of legal change and adaptation to the 21st century; in my informed opinion, as someone who has seen a thing or two over many years at the highest levels of law throughout the U.S. and around the world.
Our students’ intense body, mind and soul immersion in the study of law and learning how to be lawyers inside and outside the classroom must feel at times feel like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant. Even so, our students did an extraordinary thing. Realizing that the future of their law school was significantly in their hands, they rolled up their sleeves, working mightily to help build, shape and steer their new institution.
One hundred percent of our inaugural class completed their 1L year, and 100% have summer jobs after their first year. That is not easy, and it is not the norm anywhere else. We thank you for your help with that too.
In return we promise you that we are committed to becoming much more than just another law school. We are working to return to you the investment of time, effort and money you have made, with interest.
This native New Yorker who came to you via the nation’s capital and Brooklyn will risk sounding like Vinny Gallo in “My Cousin Vinny,” trying unconvincingly to blend in: Thank y’all. Thank you all sincerely, especially for what you have done for our “yutes.”
In a few broad strokes, we can portray what because of your continuing support, we can see within reach. We already are confident of matriculating a second terrific class of new students, slightly larger than our inaugural class.
Every one of them are good bets to excel in law school, graduate, pass the Bar exam and begin careers that fit their abilities and interests.
We feel a large responsibility to obtain provisional accreditation at the earliest possible time and are working through the summer to prepare for our site visit by the ABA accreditation team in early October. We are also excited by the prospect of moving into the College of Law’s permanent home in the heart of Downtown in about a year.
Along the way, we will be doing two things simultaneously which are both challenging and even harder to juggle.
We will continue to color within the lines to paint a clear and convincing case according to conventional wisdom and established criteria that earns respect and attracts applicants, new hires, employers, donors and impresses accreditors.
With the other hand, we are going to exhibit Jackson Pollock-style 21st century inventiveness in designing the best curriculum for students to prepare for the ever-changing world of law.
As for our long-term goals, for now, just know that we want everyone’s eyes to shine with admiration when they meet a graduate of your college of law.
Nicholas Allard is founding dean founding dean of the Jacksonville University College of Law.